Traditional art and sketching

Peruse our Sketching from the Imagination series, start your own sketch journal, or try your hand at clay sculpting! If you’re a complete beginner looking for a new hobby, or even an experienced artist looking for inspiration and workflow insights, our traditional art and sketching resources have plenty to offer!

3D digital art

Covering a wide variety of software and approaches, our books, magazines, and eBooks are there to offer you the support and motivation you need. Whether you want to sculpt a monster in ZBrush or create a stylized character in 3ds Max, take a look at our range to start your next project!

3D Art - Modelling, Digital and Game Art

Photorealistic car renders are a staple of the 3D industry, but mastering this subject is notoriously difficult! To lead you through these complex steps, 3ds Max pro Hasan Bajramović explains the process over eight chapters as he guides you through the creation of a 1936 Delage D8 120S. From blocking out the basic shape, modeling the interior, to image-based lighting, this eBook covers it all to help you become a master of creating vintage cars.

Photorealistic car renders are a staple of the 3D industry, but mastering this subject is notoriously difficult! To direct you through these complex processes, Alexandr Novitskiy breaks down the steps into eight chapters as he guides you through the creation of a photorealistic 1939 Delage D8 120 Cabriolet Chapron in Autodesk Maya, from blocking out the basic shapes to render settings and post-production tricks.

Issue 118 brings you an informative joint interview with Henning Sanden and Morten Jæger, and a thoughtful chat with veteran environment artist Rob Watkins – all full of worthwhile advice that you should check out!

Concept design, 3D printing, texturing, and fantastic sci-fi art are at the forefront of this month’s issue. We speak to Tor Frick and Justin Goby Fields about their accomplishments, and marvel at Paul Braddock and James W. Cain’s 3D-printed handiwork. Mohammad Attaran also shares an insightful look into the making of our exciting cover image – it’s a tale of hard work and perseverance, which are of course the key to everything!

John A. Martini covers the entire process of developing a stunning photoreal scene, from pre-viz and setting up the 3ds Max physical camera, through modeling in Maya, creating objects in 3ds Max, texturing and shading, and finally culminating with in-depth tuition for lighting and rendering the final scene. Featured software includes: 3ds Max, Maya, V-Ray, Photoshop, ZBrush, and NUKE.

Beginner’s Guide to Character Creation in Maya continues 3dtotal’s tradition of offering helpful guides for beginners looking to step into the world of digital art. Talented 3D Animator and Trainer, Jahirul Amin, gives an insightful breakdown of how to model from scratch using Maya and Mudbox. Not only will you learn about the principles of rigging and animation, with a step-by-step guide detailing how to link the joints and create constraints and controls for animation, you will also learn how to correctly light and render your scene for porfolio-worthy presentation. Plus, in-depth chapters on anatomy will provide you with a solid foundation on which to develop your 3D character skills, so that by the end of this book you will have created your very own realistic walk cycle.

In this month’s issue, we’re going to the movies with Ken Barthelmey (The Maze Runner) and Iker García Santander (Justin and the Knights of Valour), as they share their thoughts on the industry and experiences from the world of film. We’re also happy to be trying something new with our Spotlight feature, a versatile space for different kinds of 3D artists and their projects. This month, we’re proud to feature traditional sculptor Jonathan Payne and his extraordinary clay creations. They’re pretty unsettling – you’ve been warned!

ZBrush is a powerful program offering digital artists of all levels intuitive and inspiring workflow solutions for 3D models and 2D images. Following on from the success of other ZBrush titles such as ZBrush Character Sculpting: Volume 1, this new book focuses on the design and creation of a variety of character and creature sculpts by world-class artists including Mariano Steiner, Maarten Verhoeven, Caio César, and Kurt Papstein.

We’re kicking off this month with two wonderful interviewees, Leticia Reinaldo and Nikita Veprikov, both of whom have something to say about finding your own voice and, most important of all, having fun! We certainly hope you have fun reading this issue, where we’ve gathered a wealth of knowledge and resources to help you learn, improve, and find that creative voice we all look for.

This three-part tutorial series focuses on creating a realistic and detailed sculpt within a set time limit. Three artists – Daniel Bystedt, Nils Meyer, and Mariano Steiner – are given a base mesh and a set time limit, and over the series, strive to demonstrate some of the best methods for creating a perfect humanoid sculpt in the ever-popular ZBrush software. Each tutorial covers a different character, from concept to refining texture and general finishing, and aims to pass on some useful techniques to aid you in creating your own speedy 3D images (perfect for portfolio building!). There are no set specifications, and artists are free to be as creative as possible under the set time limit, so stand by for some interesting outcomes in this fascinating series.

One of the many things the artists in 3dcreative have taught us is the importance of following your passions. As such, we are pleased to be featuring the work of two of our favorite character artists: Bryan Wynia and Justin Bintz. Our cover artist Bryan reflects on his exciting career history, while Justin shares the excitement of the early stages of his success.

So many of the great 3D artists we speak to tell us how important history and traditional art is to them when it comes to references and inspiration, but in this issue of 3dcreative, we will be looking at what 3D skills can bring to the world of art history! Carlos Bayod Lucini explains how he and artist Manuel Franquelo have developed the Lucida scanner which, with the help of a few 3D artists, perfectly recreates historic monuments, preserving the original for generations to come.

We are constantly amazed by the advancements in 3D printing, repeatedly blowing our excitable minds! So this month we have brought in Francis Bitonti, best known for his collaborative 3D-printed dress worn by Dita Von Teese, to talk to us about careers in 3D design and his exciting new collaborations with MakerBot and 3D Hubs. On top of this, we look at the excellent craftsmanship of our cover artist, Pablo Muñoz Gomez’s ZBrush sketchbook, as well as checking out Kurt Papstein’s speedy sculpting and much, much more.